A Terry Hie Hie farmer involved in native vegetation laws since 1995 has raised concerns about new Biodiversity Conservation and Local Land Services Amendment Bills passed in state Parliament.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Rob Anderson has been part of the NSW Farmers Native Vegetation Working Group since its inception and said the purpose of the legislation changes were to free up “red tape”.
“There was supposed to be less red tape, a more user friendly approach and be better for biodiversity and production but I have my doubts as to how much these reforms will achieve,” he said.
“But I have my doubts as to how much these reforms will achieve,” he said.
Mr Anderson’s two greatest concerns were about vegetation management costs and land ‘set aside’ agreements.
“The independent panels review recommended vegetation management costs be worn by farmers and the community demanding it,” he said.
“It has turned out that farmers, if they want to manage vegetation for production reasons not purely conservation reasons, will bear 100 per cent of the costs and then some.”
He said the complex piece of legislation, full of pages of red tape, offered set aside agreements for productive clearing; to be made in perpetuity.
“If the set asides were for 15 years, people may actually take them up, then you could renegotiate. It would be a great environmental gain but the way they are now no one will take them up,” he said.
Self-assessable codes were included to allow producers a chance to clear portions while maintaining biodiversity in the area, however Mr Anderson believed the codes only looked good on paper.
“Read the fine print and you’ll find a stack of red tape. Burning off is allowed but certain trees are not to be touched. Are we meant to wet down every tree before burning?” he said.
“The average farmers coming in cold to the issue has no hope in hell at understanding it all.”
Mr Anderson believed the idea of Local Land Services (LLS) providing farmers support was good in theory, but felt a proposed 100 extra staff would be inadequate. “It would be about a third of what they’ll actually need,” he said.
He hoped changes would be made before the 2017 implementation process otherwise the legislation would be “regurgitated dogs breakfast”.
“Farmers do care about biodiversity,” he said.
“But the way it is structured now, they are so pushed at the boundaries they probably can’t put the attention into biodiversity that they’d like to because they just have to push too hard with the production country they’ve got.”
